Emily Howard: The Anvil BBC Singers, Hallé Choirs, BBC Philharmonic, Ben Gernon, Vimbayi Kaziboni

• Emily Howard (b. 1979): The Anvil "An Elegy for Peterloo" (2019):
• 1Howard: The Anvil "An Elegy for Peterloo": I. Heavy stone harvest03:12
• 2Howard: The Anvil "An Elegy for Peterloo": II. Pelt of rough turf01:47
• 3Howard: The Anvil "An Elegy for Peterloo": III. Battered shuttles04:39
• 4Howard: The Anvil "An Elegy for Peterloo": IV. The Commissioner for Paving01:07
• 5Howard: The Anvil "An Elegy for Peterloo": V. Fife drums love command liberty01:59
• 6Howard: The Anvil "An Elegy for Peterloo": VI. A lake of hats02:24
• 7Howard: The Anvil "An Elegy for Peterloo": VII. We walk in communion00:58
• 8Howard: The Anvil "An Elegy for Peterloo": VIII. We ask for sustenance and suffrage00:48
• 9Howard: The Anvil "An Elegy for Peterloo": IX. The order comes00:25
• 10Howard: The Anvil "An Elegy for Peterloo": X. Were we quickened from brick-dust00:45
• 11Howard: The Anvil "An Elegy for Peterloo": XI. Sabred and stabbed02:53
• 12Howard: The Anvil "An Elegy for Peterloo": XII. The field turns inside out04:35
• 13Howard: The Anvil "An Elegy for Peterloo": XIII.Some of our cry is their cry03:09
• 14Howard: The Anvil "An Elegy for Peterloo": XIV. Now, when you see a blush01:53
• 15Howard: The Anvil "An Elegy for Peterloo": XV. Ghosts conjured from cotton smoke02:49
• 16Howard: The Anvil "An Elegy for Peterloo": XVI. Our shibboleth02:59
• Elliptics (2022):
• 17Howard: Elliptics: I. Like a bird that has hit glass01:12
• 18Howard: Elliptics: II. Be quiet, you say01:54
• 19Howard: Elliptics: III. On the way, I reckoned up trios of street-lamps01:21
• 20Howard: Elliptics: IV. Rooks wake, warn and clatter01:16
• 21Howard: Elliptics: V. The long-gone and the not-yet-here02:05
• 22Howard: Elliptics: VI. Full-tilt towards infinity01:28
• 23Howard: Elliptics: VII. Night-long drive01:50
• 24Howard: Elliptics: VIII. Houses dark and steep, oblivious00:56
• 25Howard: Elliptics: IX. Love alone brooks resurrection00:40
• 26Howard: Elliptics: X. Under our feet, below the sewers01:48
• 27Howard: Elliptics: XI. Seven swans in grief01:28
• 28Howard: Elliptics: XII. Wildfires on the bare hills01:17
• 29Howard: Elliptics: XIII.Like a bird that has hit glass00:52
• 30Howard: Elliptics: XIV. Beyond these walls is so much silence00:15
• 31Howard: Elliptics: XV. Dusk that never blossoms. Endless vespers05:53
• Total Runtime01:00:37

Info for Emily Howard: The Anvil

The imagined sounds of mass protest run through composer Emily Howard’s and poet Michael Symmons Roberts’s The Anvil, commissioned by BBC Radio 3 and the Manchester International Festival to mark the bicentenary of the 1819 Peterloo massacre, in which crowds protesting for universal suffrage in St Peter’s Fields, Manchester, were brutally crushed. To a solo soprano who narrates and remembers and a baritone who seems caught in the action, the work adds the immense forces of four choirs – each given music tailored to its particular capabilities, from professional to amateur – and the BBC Philharmonic to ask: what future was being forged in the tragic events that took place that day? A second collaboration between Howard and Symmons Roberts, Elliptics, is quieter, more elegiac: a meditation on love and death, and on what we hope.

"Howard’s musical style, jangly and adversarial, entirely suits her subject, the 1819 Peterloo Massacre, where troops charged into a crowd demanding voting reforms...The accompanying Howard vocal piece, Elliptics, is a little less winning, but offers more proof of a fiercely individual composing talent." (The Times)

Kate Royal, soprano
Claire Booth, soprano
Hugh Cutting, countertenor
Christopher Purves, baritone
BBC Singers
Halle Choirs
BBC Philharmonic Orchestra
Ben Gernon, conductor
Vimbayi Kaziboni, conductor

Kate Royal
Born in London, Kate Royal studied at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama and the National Opera Studio. Her many awards include the 2004 Kathleen Ferrier Award, the 2004 John Christie Award and the 2007 Royal Philharmonic Society Young Artist Award.

In concert she has appeared with the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment and Sir Simon Rattle (BBC Proms and Festspielhaus Baden-Baden), the Bach Akademie Stuttgart under Helmuth Rilling, at the Edinburgh Festival with Sir Charles Mackerras, the National Symphony Orchestra (Washington) under Helmuth Rilling, the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic and Vasily Petrenko, the Orchestra of La Scala Milan and Chung, the Los Angeles Philharmonic under Pablo Heras-Casado, Le Concert d’Astree under Emanuelle Haim and the Berlin Philharmonic under both William Christie and Sir Simon Rattle. She has appeared in recital throughout Europe and North America.

She has recorded Mahler’s Symphony No. 4 with the Manchester Camerata and Schumann’s Liederkreis (for Hyperion) with Graham Johnson. In October 2006 Kate Royal signed an exclusive contract with EMI Classics. Her first solo recording with Edward Gardner and the Academy of St Martin-in-the-Fields was issued in the summer of 2007.

In opera she has sung Pamina (Die Zauberflöte) for both the Glyndebourne Festival and the Royal Opera, Countess (Le nozze di Figaro) and Governess (The Turn of the Screw) for Glyndebourne on Tour, Helena (A Midsummer Night’s Dream) for both the Teatro Real, Madrid and the Glyndebourne Festival, Poppea for the English National Opera, Miranda (Ades’ The Tempest) for the Royal Opera, Handel’s L’Allegro for the Paris Opera, Micaela (Carmen) and Donna Elvira (Don Giovanni) for the Glyndebourne Festival and Countess Almaviva for the Aix-en-Provence Festival.

Her concert engagements include both the Berlin Philharmonic and the Orchestra of Bavarian Radio under Rattle, the Scottish Chamber Orchestra and Ticciati and the Rotterdam Philharmonic and Nezet-Seguin. Her operatic engagements include the Governess for the Glyndebourne Festival, Pamina for the Royal Opera and Euridice in her Metropolitan Opera debut.

The BBC Singers
has held a unique place at the heart of the UK’s choral scene for almost 100 years and has collaborated with many of the world’s leading composers, conductors and soloists.

Based at the BBC’s Maida Vale Studios, the choir records music for broadcast on BBC Radio 3, alongside work for other network radio, television and commercial release. It also presents an annual series of concerts at Milton Court Concert Hall, performs free concerts in London and appears at major festivals in the UK and abroad.

The BBC Singers promotes a 50:50 gender policy for composers whose music it performs, and champions composers from all backgrounds. Recent concerts and recordings include music by Soumik Datta, Joanna Marsh, Reena Esmail, Sun Keting and Roderick Williams, and recent collaborations have featured Laura Mvula, Clare Teal, South Asian dance company Akademi and the Choir recently appeared as guests on ‘The Choir Badge’ episode of popular children's programme *Hey Duggee*.

The BBC Singers appears annually at the BBC Proms. The 2023 season saw the group perform at the First and Last Nights, as well as concerts with Sir Simon Rattle, an evening with Jon Hopkins and the BBC Symphony Orchestra, and a concert with Chief Conductor Sofi Jeannin.

At the heart of the BBC Singers work is a wide-ranging programme of learning activities working with children and adults in schools, music colleges, universities and community groups.

Halle Choirs
is a large symphony chorus, made up of over 200 singers from across the North West and beyond, and from all walks of life.

Founded alongside the Orchestra by Sir Charles Hallé in 1858, the internationally-acclaimed Hallé Choir gives around 15 concerts a year. Recent highlights have included performances of Elgar’s three great oratorios The Dream of Gerontius, The Apostles and The Kingdom as the climax to the Hallé’s 2022–2023 season (and all three have also been released on the Hallé’s own multi-award-winning CD label) and Rachmaninov’s The Bells with the Hallé and Sir Mark Elder at the 2023 BBC Proms.

As well as appearing with the Hallé, the Choir also performs regularly with other orchestras at venues and festivals around the UK, including the BBC Proms, Edinburgh International Festival and York Minster. Recent collaborations have included Elgar’s The Dream of Gerontius with the London Philharmonic Orchestra and Choir under Edward Gardner at the 2022 BBC Proms, and the world premiere of Brett Dean’s In This Brief Moment with the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra and Chorus under Nicholas Collon, also in 2022.

In earlier seasons the Choir has been thrilled to have performed Schoenberg’s Gurrelieder, Verdi’s Requiem, Berlioz’s The Damnation of Faust and Act 3 of Wagner’s Parsifal, as well as undertaking a Spanish tour in 2019 that included two concerts with the Orquesta Sinfónica de Castilla y León and an a cappella programme of English music.

Made up of 200 singers from all over the North-West of England and from all walks of life, the Hallé Choir offers a range of additional activities, including individual coaching and social events, as well as regular rehearsals.

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